


Demon's Light

by ivoryflowers



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryflowers/pseuds/ivoryflowers
Summary: An exploration of the characters Suigetsu and Mangetsu, the Second Coming of the Demon, and their lives, as well as what would have happened if Mangetsu had lived. An attempt, if you will have it, to fix Fate itself.
Relationships: Hoozuki Mangetsu & Haku (Naruto), Hoozuki Mangetsu & Hoozuki Suigetsu, Hoozuki Mangetsu & Momochi Zabuza, Hoozuki Mangetsu & The Seven Deadly Swordsmen of the Mist, Hoozuki Sugetsu/Tayuya, Hoozuki Suigetsu and Haku (Naruto), Momochi Zabuza & Haku, Momochi Zabuza & Terumi Mei
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I am not associated with Masashi Kishimoto or Studio Pierrot in any way. This is simply a fanwork I am using to improve my writing style and share my headcanons for my favorite village, Kirigakure.

In most works of literature, they say demons’ eyes glow in the dark and you can feel their inhuman intent even without seeing their faces. Demons rip your soul from your body with a touch you cannot feel, creeping up your back and reaching, through your ribcage, into the cavity where a heart was once expected to sit.

Demons...a supernatural evil...and yet, so commonly, it is used to describe humans.

【鬼灯】

HOZUKI.

The young heir of the clan Hozuki looks up from a scroll on kenjutsu. The room he is in is gray and dark, lit proudly by a lantern bearing their clan crest. Light wavers from inside the paper box as a vainly dancing narcissus of a flame flares and shrinks to marvel in its own lack of a shadow.

It’s quiet.

The moon is a finely polished sickle-blade, hung up on an invisible hook in the sky. It’s almost invisible, shy of a new moon.

It’s not past bedtime yet, and Suigetsu isn’t fussing. Perhaps that’s the source of the quiet, Mangetsu thinks, as he sets his scroll down on the table before him and reaches for the lantern, intending to use its narcissistic dance to guide him through the house. Small hands grasp it by the thin handle as he hops down from his seat at the desk, careful not to drop the thing on the floor. A lantern filled with fire won’t take kindly to being dropped.

Silent even now, his footsteps trace out of the room. The air is heavy, and against his skin he can foretell the whisper of rain, approaching from the west on a wind bound northeast. It’s a clan technique as much as the suika transformation, because every Hozuki needs to know where water is, was, or will be, before becoming water. 

He doesn’t call out. Mangetsu’s always been a quiet kid, and eerily independent. The lantern light seems to slow in spirit the further down the halls its wielder walks, as if fearful of the walls. 

After a few more steps, he reaches the nursery where his little brother rests. Drawing the sliding screen to the side, he sets the lamp down just inside the room, deciding to enter. Suigetsu, the little imp, is in his crib, staring off to the corner of the ceiling with luminous iris-flower eyes.

“Hello, little brother.” Mangetsu comes close, watching the toddler’s gaze wander towards him. Suigetsu smiles at him, holding out two hands. He wants to be held.

How hopelessly innocent children are.

“Nii,” the younger says proudly, staring at him. If Mangetsu doesn’t hold him, he’ll bawl his little eyes out. It’s a demand.

“Mm,” the older boy mumbles, reaching out and securely lifting his brother out of the crib. “You’re so clingy.”

As is to be expected of a three-year-old. 

He holds Suigetsu close to his chest, letting him lean against his shoulder and nuzzle into his hair. The pair of them share features very closely - white hair, violet eyes, pale skin, even eye shape. If not for the four-year gap between them, they could be twins.

…

Mangetsu could wish for his brother never to grow up, but that would be foolish.

Everyone who grows up in the shinobi world will suffer, and Suigetsu will do so without fail.

“Mangetsu-sama,” a polite voice stirs from the doorway. A maidservant. “If you have finished your study for the night, please get ready for bed.”

_How annoying...I only just settled him on my shoulder and now I have to put him back down. He’ll cry for sure…_

Backtalk to a servant - no, anyone - is improper, and it’s not worth arguing right now. He attempts to remove his brother from his spot clutching at Mangetsu’s shoulders --

And, predictably, the younger boy begins to fuss.

He sighs.

“No,” Suigetsu insists, gripping tighter as Mangetsu pries him off. “No! I want...big brother…”

...it’ll be a few moments before the little imp starts wailing…

 _“Jouki,”_ Mangetsu pronounces, frowning at his brother, “You heard -”

The words are broken off by a sudden yell. Reflexively he pulls his brother back to his chest, the maidservant at the door shutting the screen and hurrying in to protect the children from whatever it is.

Mangetsu doesn’t let go of his brother, coming closer to the door to listen. The maidservant, about to call him back, is silenced suddenly by the sound of someone being dismembered in a far-off room. There’s screaming, constant screaming now, pitches blurring -

...it’s not hard to tell why.

_Yagura._

**“WARN THE OTHERS! WE WON’T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT!”**

Shingetsu-ojisan’s voice. Those who hate the kekkei-genkai have stormed the compound -

He grits his teeth, holding Suigetsu tighter, as the younger boy threatens to wail within the chaos. Nobody can know. They’ll find and kill both the clan heirs if Mangetsu himself is compromised. Suigetsu is defenseless as he is now - too young to activate a jutsu, or even understand what’s really going on.

The door slams open suddenly, the sound lost in the cacophony of fighting, revealing his mother. She’s breathing hard, wild panic in her face. They shouldn’t have stormed the compound but should nots and could nots are irrelevant. The only thing she cares about is saving her two children. No doubt they sent shinobi who could counter the Hozuki _hiden_ jutsu…

“Mangetsu,” Fuyukaze enunciates, her voice as cold and crisp as the winter wind, her namesake. 

“Take your brother and run. Don’t just stand there! We raised you a shinobi and that’s what you’ll be, right now. Protect Suigetsu, as his elder brother. Don’t let him die, at any cost. Soyokaze-san and I will buy you time. Don’t waste it.”

Fuyukaze crosses over to her two sons, stark black hair unravelling behind her as would a mourner’s ribbon. Pale blue eyes, diluted with gray, seem to soften.

This will be the last conversation she has with either of them, and she has to make it count.

“...make sure, no matter what...you achieve your dream for us all.”

One pale hand reaches out and ruffles Mangetsu’s flat white hair before finding Suigetsu’s head and pressing against it gently, briefly. Then Fuyukaze turns away, and Mangetsu has no choice except to follow her instructions.

The lantern is forgotten as he muffles his brother’s cries as best as he can, bare feet ever-silently skidding against the floorboards, taking them through the compound, down the stairs, out so that his steps no longer collide on wood, but grass, careful not to trample a trace into the garden. 

Come morning, the flame of the paper lantern is extinguished by clan blood.


	2. Waxing Crescent Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Water, though it looks gentle, places its own burden on those beneath it, and yields easily to those who are so arrogant that they fall in without knowing how to swim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I am not associated with Masashi Kishimoto or Studio Pierrot in any way. This is simply a fanwork I am using to improve my writing style and share my headcanons for my favorite village, Kirigakure.

They are half-fish.

Perhaps it’s luck. Even those who hate the kekkei-genkai can’t kill what they can’t find.

Kirigakure is bordered by water, and every molecule of it is a place where they can hide. There’s no Raiton user in Mizu no Kuni strong enough to send a current through the entirety of the ocean, nor through Kiri’s every lake and river.

Neither of the brothers surface.

Suigetsu is having a hard time mastering the jutsu; three years old is far too early to teach someone a bodily transformation, and if not for the near-invisible gills at the sides of their necks, he would have drowned. The one thing Mangetsu can’t do is hurry him up…

“Niisan,” comes Suigetsu’s plaintive voice. “I’m scared...my hand…”

Wide violet eyes stare at the elder brother through the matter of his small hand, half-translucent, half-solid. “What if my hand doesn’t come back?”

His chakra is too unstable; he lacks control...and yet the only thing he can do is practice.

Mangetsu’s hair floats about him like a Nereid’s crown of seaweed as he grasps his brother’s wrists, his own forearms appearing to dissolve.

“Your hand will always come back,” he assures. “You have to learn this, little brother. Do it again.”

Trying his hardest, Suigetsu dissolves his hand. There’s panic on his face as it disappears, fading into the water. His chest heaves, water bubbling around his head as his gills open and shut frenetically.

“Put it back, put it back,” he howls, frantically gathering chakra, trying to make sure his hand reforms. It’s exhausting, and his energy drains as if he’s just been forced to walk a great distance with tiny legs.

“...look, you did it,” Mangetsu says, once again holding onto Suigetsu’s tiny hands, offering the faintest smile. “You did it, _jouki._ ”

“Did I…?” Suigetsu is already yawning, bubbles spiraling around his head like the halo of a sea angel, as he settles against his brother’s chest. “I’m tired...niisan…”

“You must be. Go to sleep.”

He feels, somewhere, a form of pity for his brother, so small and so hopelessly lost; Suigetsu will never know their mother and the way she would tend to their garden, or the sound of her voice singing the lullabies of the sea. He’ll never know their father, or learn the way of the blade from the other clan members.

The responsibility that Mangetsu must take on now is the pressure of the ocean, looming above and endless below; he is their clan, he is the only one left to guide his little brother, and this is his only chance to make sure that Suigetsu will make it, will live. 

It makes him grit his teeth. All of this...because people feared them...because Yagura ordered them to kill the clans which carried the Kekkei Genkai.

The Hozuki skill isn’t even a bloodline limit. It’s a clan skill achieved through discipline and fine control. The Nidaime possessed a Kekkei Genkai, but the _hiden_ technique isn’t it. In any case, that Kekkei Genkai has not manifested in the Hozuki line since Gengetsu.

The others were simply too scared of their power, acting blindly and seeing their potential as one to kill, not to praise as a great defense for the village -

The rage Mangetsu feels at this is unspeakable. They did not oust his forefather as the Mizukage because he was strong and yet, in this time of Chigiri no Sato…

He resolves to become so strong that he and his brother will never be driven away again.

To surpass the Second Mizukage.

The idea isn’t far-fetched. With training, he can do it. Suigetsu, who follows his brother’s every footstep, will doubtlessly want to copy him too.

Together they can become strong enough to stand against a jinchuuriki.

Holding his sleeping brother to his chest as they drift about the depths of the lake, he begins to think. Dismantling, in his mind, the hierarchy of power in Kiri, plotting paths that both of them can take towards becoming strong.

Of course, strength lies in experience. For a shinobi, experience lies in missions. Suigetsu isn’t old enough for the Academy and Mangetsu doesn’t want to risk people catching onto the fact that they survived just yet. He’s already graduated - actually he passed with flying colors the year before, six years old and already so proficient in kenjutsu that jounin were scouting him for their squads.

Returning to the Academy means that their superiors will treat Suigetsu as an encumbrance, a liability, and perhaps one day he will go home and find his brother gone, killed by an _accident_ for taking too long to grow up.

No.

He won’t subject his brother to that.

He’ll teach Suigetsu the basics of everything he managed to learn from the clanspeople until he can handle jutsu. An unexpected ‘return’ can be arranged as soon as Suigetsu can handle his own weight in a fight. Going on official missions can be done in spite of Yagura.

A show of sorts, boasting unbroken wills and a fierce loyalty to the same country which attempted and failed to off them. The next greatest thing that the Hozuki clan is known for, after their clan techniques, is their bravado, after all. There isn’t one member of the house who wasn’t known for putting on a show in every fight.

They spend the next weeks working on chakra control. It’s hard teaching such an abstract concept to someone so young, but simplifying it to its bare essentials and using plenty of analogies somehow gets through to the younger boy.

Mangetsu is patient. It helps that Suigetsu is a voracious learner who only stops when he has exhausted his chakra, and his limit grows every day.

As an older brother, he is proud of his younger brother, but...inevitably, he will have to explain why they never come home any more. Why they no longer wear the clan-crested robes. Why they never go into town and spend all their time hiding away in bodies of water. 

Mangetsu grits his teeth when he thinks of the words, structuring them like a tower of domino tiles in his mind, but sweeping them aside with dissatisfaction every single time. The explanations are either too flowery or too bitter, because he is bitter, he doesn’t see _why_ everything in Kirigakure has to be so utterly **messed up**. He wonders how Karatachi Yagura was ever sworn in as Lord Fourth...why a man so powerful and yet so _insane_ was chosen to lead the country, much less why he was made into a jinchuuriki.

It’s incomprehensible.

A year passes. Mangetsu turns eight years old, and Suigetsu four, three days apart.

For their birthdays, they get to live.

They don’t have the money for anything else.

…

“Niisan, niisan, look at this!” Suigetsu’s gleeful voice shatters the chain of thoughts Mangetsu is having about where they can get their next meal. Startled, he begins to tell him off, but stops when he realizes what Suigetsu is so happy about.

He frowns.

“... _Jouki_ , that is a corpse.”

And indeed it is a corpse, of someone who died of dehydration clad in weak leather armor. He’s disconcerted by Suigetsu’s willingness to approach, crouch down and, rather abruptly, tear into the leather scabbards that the dead man possesses. One scabbard, worn on the right, is a _shoutou_ , a small sword. The other scabbard contains a _daitou_ , a larger sword.

Well, it isn’t like a dead man needs his weaponry any longer.

“Look! There’s one for me and one for you,” Suigetsu affirms with glee, already holding the _shoutou_ in both hands. “So shiny…”

“Shiny and _dangerous_ ,” he reminds the boy, already dreading the idea of Suigetsu swinging the sword and getting himself killed. Four-year-olds should not have swords. Not even Mangetsu was given a sword at four. The lowest age for such things in the Hozuki clan was always six. A whole two years of development in coordination.

“I won’t get hurt if I use the clan jutsu! Please…”

Suigetsu looks up at him like it will change anything.

…

“You can’t rely on the clan jutsu to protect you from everything,” Mangetsu huffs, already strapping the _daitou_ to his back and picking up the _shoutou_. “You’re four. What do you think will happen if I give you this sword?”

“You’ll teach me how to use it,” Suigetsu says, earning an exasperated frown. How naive…

“Tch, you’ll cut yourself to ribbons first,” Mangetsu sighs. 

“I will not,” Suigetsu counters. “Not if you teach me! You’re a great teacher. I bet I’ll master kenjutsu in no time and be just as good as you!” One sharp tooth shows in a pout.

…

He has so much faith…

Mangetsu sighs and reaches out, one hand resting on Suigetsu’s head. Hair as white as tundra ruffles like falling snow.

“...if you say so.”

They bury the corpse amongst the nearby water weeds, saying their thanks for the weapons, and disappear into the mist.

The moon is waxing in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave some constructive criticism if you so wish.


	3. Half-Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had a quaint little habit of cutting off his victims' arms and legs...before beheading them. - Hoshigaki Kisame, about Suigetsu.
> 
> In which a kill earns a half-moon smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I am not associated with Masashi Kishimoto or Studio Pierrot in any way. This is simply a fanwork I am using to improve my writing style and share my headcanons for my favorite village, Kirigakure.
> 
> Warning: This chapter deals with graphic depictions of murder.

Another year passes. Suigetsu turns five and Mangetsu nine.

By then Suigetsu has proved proficient enough in the use of his shoutou that it’s clear the pair of them are cut from the same mold. If Mangetsu had to rank him in skill, he would say chuunin-level without pause. Suigetsu is just as calculating as his brother and just as precise with a blade - enough that he was given a pass on the spot when Mangetsu, revelling in the faces of the superiors who had thought they had died, presented him to those who could assign him a rank as genin.

D-rank is too easy for them. They barely take an hour to do each of the two assignments before their superiors decide that their power is being wasted.

D-rank becomes C-rank. In Kirigakure such missions almost always end in bloodshed. Everything is too violent and nobody understands the boundary between morals and self-service. It may as well not exist.

C-rank spills less blood than B-rank and B-rank spills less than A-rank, but in Kirigakure, almost every mission stains shinobi with red.

The jounin assigning them their first B-rank mission looks over a piece of paper with the mission details scrawled on in straight, angular characters.

“Your mission is to guard a convoy on behalf of the Mizu Daimyou. You will be travelling through the Land of Waves to a specified location, accompanied by another jounin to make up your three-man cell.”

The man at the desk is severe, the wrinkles at his mouth showing that he has never smiled. He doubts the capacity of a five year old to carry out a mission, but the elder brother refuses to leave the boy behind - fine then. He could bet money that Mangetsu does all the work. 

As if.

“Walk on your own,” Mangetsu says dully, as they travel through the forest. Suigetsu is itching for a confrontation, a chance to show off his skills in front of the sickeningly judgemental jounin man they have been assigned under - a glorified babysitter in terms of competence - but at the same time, the younger boy is asking to be held up, to stand on the shoulders of giants. Laughable. 

“But niisan…”

“But nothing.” His voice is about as dry as salted nori paper. “Stop wasting your breath and focus on the mission.”

Mangetsu isn’t one to be affectionate. Such displays in Kiri are rarer than the pearl of a mirage clam. Growing up, not even he saw so much as the warm squeeze of a mother’s hand or the firm reliability of a father’s hand on his shoulder; Suigetsu will be spoiled if Mangetsu shows him any different. Babies had time to be clingy when they were too innocent to understand anything. Suigetsu is past that.

In front of them, the jounin leader scoffs in a deliberately loud and condescending manner. Mangetsu’s brow twitches with annoyance. Suigetsu immediately stops talking, scowling at the leader’s back instead.

The youngest boy hasn’t learned to snark back yet. Another thing Mangetsu will have to educate him on is when to keep his mouth shut. The Hozuki all inherit a distinctly unbearable wit, which doubtlessly Suigetsu will display soon enough. 

He’ll be a lot more argumentative then. Mangetsu doesn’t look forward to it.

They continue walking with the rest of the convoy in silence.

…

“Ne -”

Suigetsu looks at his brother, and in a quieter voice than can be heard by whatever is watching them, asks, “do you feel that as well?”

The moisture in the air has shifted. It’s now distinctly saltier, warmer. Characteristic of human bodies.

“...mhm. Keep walking.”

Mangetsu doesn’t say anything else. If their leader is truly competent, he’ll pick up on it - if he hasn’t already.

“Surround the cargo!”

...perhaps the jounin isn’t so incompetent.

The first kunai strung with paper bombs are thrown around them, lodging in tree trunks as the brothers take up their respective posts at the flanks of the litter. They draw their blades in tandem, awaiting the mistake of an assailant, whether that mistake is the launching of a weapon or even, foolishly, the engagement of their convoy in a melee.

It’s not that Mangetsu is overconfident. His measurement of his own abilities is objective and accurate. He’s simply a very analytical person by nature. 

Killers often are.

A melee here would risk damage to the cargo. He’s not sure how much information these assailants have - they’re Kiri nin, yes, but aligned only to themselves, petty thieves looking for an easy sell on the black market or perhaps a lofty reward from their employer.

Nukenin disgust him, and yet he understands why they choose to be so self-serving - nobody wants to serve under the banner of Yagura. Most citizens who choose the shinobi path do not do so because they want to protect their bloody murderer of a leader. No, they do it for the money or their own personal desire to spill the blood of others. Perhaps even just for the claim of wearing a shinobi band on the brow.

They’re not like the clanspeople, who are shinobi because their fathers were shinobi, their mothers were warriors, and their cousins soldiers. Non-clanspeople have no concept of familial honor, that’s what Mangetsu has found. They have nothing to uphold except their own name. They grow up selfish. They break easily when offers are extended, when wealth is dangled an inch from their avaricious fingers.

“Look at these brats,” one barks, in a laugh so harsh it makes Mangetsu wrinkle his nose. The man is greasy, disgusting, and gnarled, with ugly stretched skin and eyes so hidden in folds he looks like a flat-faced dog. The Kiri headband he’s clearly stolen from a dead man, based on its ragged condition, is positioned like a collar around his ugly neck. No living shinobi would allow the symbol of their honor to degrade in such a manner.

“Weak little shits! The authority’s getting desperate with who they choose!” 

That tells Mangetsu quite a lot. This one is an idiot as well as an eyesore - ignorant and misinformed.

_Imbecile._

It scars his pride as well, knowing their faces and names are not yet legendary enough to instill fear, that grown men still think of them as children. He catches himself immediately, berating himself for his overblown pride as a kunai knife is hurled to impale his forehead. It’s laughable how easily he can avoid the blow, catching the knife by the ring at its handle and taking it for himself as the man rushes forwards.

A fatal error. 

The pug-faced idiot aims to swing at the young nin’s face, but with all the grace and fluidity of the tide, Mangetsu dodges the blow, not even sparing the man a glance of the Hozuki clan’s great secret technique. Instead he uppercuts the man in the solar plexus with far more force than seems proportional to his frame, owing to him throwing his weight forward and upwards. The man is winded and forced to spit as Mangetsu uses his other hand - the one wielding the _daitou_ \- to position the killing blow. Beneath the fringe of Arctic, near-colorless hair are eyes devoid of mercy.

The man attempts to fight back, of course, shifting his weight into a sideways flip of sorts, his leg straightening to attempt to kick the sword from the boy’s hand. His eyes are now showing an awareness that this foe isn’t some substandard fodder child.

Good. His opponent deserves a reward for making it this far.

As the kick arcs toward the flat of Mangetsu’s blade, he shifts the weapon out of the way so that his head is what the assailant kicks instead. Or at least attempts to.

The clan jutsu activates on reflex and the man kicks water.

As Mangetsu reforms, he sees the terror finally grasp the man’s facial features.

_Hozuki._

Terror is a brilliant death mask for the bumbling, idiotic mudsucker. He dies quickly, another victim to the water pistol jutsu. A single drop of blood and a small wound the size of a pinhead is the only clue to his method of demise. A clean and quiet kill, perfected by experience. He doesn’t revel in his victory, however.

As he turns he becomes aware of a second opponent, engaging him in combat with fluid speed and force. A third attacker is engaging the jounin leader.

_Where is my brother?_

The one facing Mangetsu now learned from the death of the first, aiming to pressure him while one last assailant takes the convoy -- _where is his brother?_

There’s an inhuman scream as the litter is opened.

_Suigetsu --_

It’s not his brother screaming, however. As he parries a strike from his current opponent he becomes aware that the one who tried to open the litter by force is now missing an arm. It’s fallen on the ground in a puddle of sinew and severed tendons. Red is everywhere. 

He attempts to stumble backwards in defense, clutching his chest with his one hand, but in retaliation, and almost instantly, a deep gash bites into his right leg. He collapses, the artery in his thigh dangerously close to being fatally severed. Another scream.

His other leg is gashed to a similar degree by the sword wielded in a small, pale hand. As the man whimpers his dying cries and pleads for death to spare him, a boy emerges from within the litter, dripping with carmine fluid streaked across his small frame like spilled paint.

The ghost of a boy wastes no time finishing off the man’s limbs with ease before finally slashing at the man’s head.

“...weak.”

…

Mangetsu’s opponent loses focus at the horrible sounds of the whelp dismembering a grown man. The boy doesn’t waste time sympathizing for the lack of concentration. He can deal with the latest development of Suigetsu’s skill after this man is dead, which doesn’t take long.

“ _Jouki…_ ”

His younger brother is crouched in front of the man he has just killed. Violet eyes seem almost red with glee and pride, sharp teeth forming a smile as the sharp musk of iron in the blood presents itself like a cloak.

“Look at him, niisan. He was so weak. Did I do good?”

“...”

The jounin leader behind them, having disposed of the last attacker, watches the scene. His own heart twinges with the sudden awareness of fear.

It’s an emotion he hasn’t felt since he was the same age as this...murderer now crouched like a child playing in the dirt. The boy is smiling as if he’s just won a game of _tedama..._

Mangetsu looks at the corpse, and then at his brother. The cuts are clean. He can feel the fear in the jounin leader’s breath.

Good.

His hand comes down on Suigetsu’s hair, now stained with vermillion traces of what was once a life.

He ruffles the boy’s hair.

“That was great, _jouki._ ”

A half-smile.

…

Their leader is a lot more careful with his derisive mannerisms afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! School has certainly been piling a high workload on me, but I should be more free now!
> 
> Translator's note: 'tedama' is the Japanese name for 'jacks'.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave some constructive criticism if you so wish.


End file.
